‘Lockdown sent my darling mum from independent and active to falling and frail...’
MY 81-YEAR-OLD mum was sprightly and active pre lockdown.
Every morning she walked to her local shops to buy her daily newspaper. She’d go grocery shopping a couple of times a week and wander around the supermarket for at least half an hour. Every Saturday she helped with disabled teenagers at a local charity.
And she regularly drove over an hour to me in London to look after her grandchildren.
But as she has underlying health issues, as many people in their 80s do, she followed government advice and stayed home and shielded from late March. In retrospect that was a catastrophic decision.
After 12 weeks of pottering around at home, she went out for the first time just over a month ago. She only walked a few hundred yards to post a letter. But as someone brushed past her, she fell over.
Physically she only got a few bruises. Psychologically she gave herself a shock – she had never had a fall before.
Two weeks ago, it was far worse; she fell down her stairs at home. She managed to crawl to the phone to call an ambulance and the paramedics got a key from a neighbour to get in. They found her lying on the floor.
Even though she fell down just seven stairs, ending up on the halfway landing, she has fractured her sternum and got a resultant chest infection. She’s had to stay in hospital for 10 days recovering and having therapy to walk again. She is now unsteady on her feet and uses a walking frame to get around.
We have had to move her bed to the ground floor as she can no longer manage the stairs (and may never). And her home has been adapted for her lack of mobility and grab rails are to be fitted by the front and back doorsteps.
We do not know when (or if) she will be able to walk unaided or drive again.
My darling mum has gone from active and independent to falling and frail thanks to shielding and lockdown.
But none of this is a surprise to the medical experts. The British Geriatrics Society warned in early May that lockdown and shielding had led to “dangerously low levels of physical activity” in older people and that “this will prove detrimental to their health” and “likely result in a loss of independence and increased need for medical treatment”.
They specifically warned of an increase in falls and fractures months ago!
But my mum had been getting exercise gardening and going up and down stairs. Why was that not enough?
“Because it is less than she used to do she has likely lost muscle strength,” explains Tahir Masud, Professor of Geriatric Medicine in Nottingham
University Hospitals NHS Trust, who is also president of the British Geriatrics Society.
“At ages of above 70 or 80, muscle deterioration can be rapid. If older patients are bed bound in hospital for just a few days that is enough to start muscle atrophy.”
But it’s not just muscle strength that goes after being housebound for months. The ability to balance, to keep upright after a wobble or a knock (what doctors term “postural stability”) is reduced.
“It’s a vicious circle. Reduced muscle function contributes to balance deteriorating.that causes a slower walk, with shorter strides, a less confident gait, all of which further increases fall risk.”
And hospitals are seeing the results: “Already we are beginning to see more falls in older people, beds are being filled up by falls and corresponding broken bones now lockdown is over.
“If older people are going back out again and have not had time to adjust, then their balance and
‘She is now unsteady and uses a frame’ ‘The British Geriatrics Society warned in early May that lockdown had led to dangerously low levels of activity’ ‘Mum is thinking of moving to a retirement flat’
muscles may not have had time to build up again.”
The solution is exercise – getting the older generation to move.
The charity Age UK’S Northern Ireland branch has launched an exercise programme with Lady Mary Peters (“Move with Mary”). And Professor Mahud wants a terrestrial TV channel to broadcast a daily exercise programme specifically geared towards older people – a bit like Joe Wicks for the over 70s!
My mum is hoping to recover fully and get back to her previous activity levels. That may or may not happen. However the fourbedroom family home she has lived in for 55 years is now (in her current state) too much for her and she is having to think about moving to a far smaller retirement flat that is safer and more manageable.
However it will be an emotional day when she leaves the family home that holds so many memories of both her children growing up as well as my much missed dad.
Getting Covid-19 could have killed my mum. But shielding has also come at a very large cost to her physical and mental health.